Indore: Over 57% school kids face trouble in dealing with stress, says study

With the increasing level of educational, social and family stress, the school going students these days are suffering from various health issues and face trouble in managing stress, reveals a study conducted by Disha- Centre for Assessment and Counselling.Litha Thampy | TNN | Updated: December 21, 2015, 12:46 IST

Indore: With the increasing level of educational, social and family stress, the school going students these days are suffering from various health issues and face trouble in managing stress, reveals a study conducted by Disha- Centre for Assessment and Counselling.

Over 57% school kids are dealing with alarming stress levels and are not able to deal with it. This may result in major challenges ahead in their life, if the relevant issues are not addressed in time, mentions a key finding in the study.

The detailed study was conducted covering over 500 school kids from class 1 to 10 in a private school of the city recently to check emotional maturity among children. Elaborating about emotional maturity and its connection with stress issues, city-based clinical and career psychologist, Prachi Agarwal, said "Emotional maturity in children is developed by learning and practicing a set of skills (both by parents and children) that help children identify, appropriately express and manage their emotions.

This practise helps them develop effective relationships, cope with stress, adapt to change and make good decisions." According to her, emotional maturity is important because it allows and enhances children to stand up to bullies, handle pressure, or become motivated to perform better in any given situation.

The study also reveals that around 31% children showed good levels of emotional maturity and were managing stress quite well. On the other hand, around 11% kids were lagging behind in emotional maturity, leading to depression and poor management of stress. The assessment was done through standardised psychometric tests and certain experiential interpersonal activities that were designed by psychologists to evaluate their emotional maturity and its related variables.

Tips for emotional maturity

1. Stop thinking that something will happen without efforts.

2. Learn to tolerate anxiety.

3. Learn to recognize and appropriately express your anger.

4. Learn to cope with pain and hurt.

5. Take responsibility for your mistakes, verbally express your regrets and take action to make amends.

Only in India the healthcare financing is very small when compared to the financing by the other forces rather than the patient himself or herself paying out of pocket. Having 70-75% of the expenses as out-of-pocket, in my opinion, is not a right approach to managing healthcare in a country where the patients tend to sub-optimally purchase healthcare if he/she has to pay out-of-pocket.